I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
Interpretation
True friends remain consistent and supportive, regardless of changes in circumstances.
This quote by Plutarch emphasizes the importance of genuine friendship, suggesting that true friends should stand by each other through changes instead of simply conforming or agreeing out of convenience. The comparison to a shadow highlights that a superficial companion is not truly valuable, as they lack the depth and support that a real friend provides.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the qualities of true friendship.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
I think if you're lucky enough to be in a band with your best friends, and you look at the world in the right way, than you understand that everything that's happening to you can be alchemized.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty.
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